*******In February 2000, the ABC News program 20/20 ran a highly critical piece on organic agriculture. The piece featured prominently the views of Dennis Avery. In a February 9, 2000 post to the ECOL-AGRIC list, Dr. William Lockeretz responded to an earlier post on the show and shared memories of similar events 20 years ago*******

Nic Lampkin's recent posting about the smear campaign against organic farming is strikingly reminiscent of what happened in the US 20 years ago. The perpetrator at that time was the Council for Agriculture Science and Technology, a high-visibility, ultra-respectable organization representing just about all the major agricultural professional societies in the US (over 20 of them). Although CAST's literature depicted it as an impartial body just concerned with promoting responsible scientific knowledge about agricultural issues, in fact the conclusions of their "analyses" were ludicrously easy to predict. Invariably, they would downplay or whitewash the problems of conventional, high-tech, industrial-style agriculture, whether its environmental damage, possible health threats, or whatever.

In 1980, when this upstart called "organic" was gaining some respectability, CAST issued a report that claimed to compare it to conventional agriculture. To be generous, I'll only say that the report was infantile, although stronger language would not be inappropriate. It had the predictable but totally unsupported pseudo- and non-arguments against organic farming, mainly "it can't feed the world." But there is nothing in the report that suggests that the authors collected any data, did anything that might be called "analysis", or talked to anybody who actually knew anything about organic farming. From what I have been told, basically they met a few times to sit around and discuss it among themselves. A few years later, at an excellent all-day session on organic farming under the auspices of the American Society of Agronomy (a CAST affiliate), the feeling among the few agronomists I talked to -- not a representative cross-section, to be sure, given the session they were involved in -- was that the CAST report was an embarrassment to the profession.

But something else also happened in 1980: the publication by the US Department of Agriculture of its "Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming." The USDA was hardly what one would call a friend of organic agriculture at the time (I won't touch the question of whether it can be described that way now). Although it had no official position on the subject, a widely-quoted statement by the Secretary of Agriculture in the early 1970s, the notorious Earl Butz, could be taken as a kind of unofficial position -- namely, that 50 million Americans would die of starvation if organic farming was widely adopted.

Nevertheless, at the prompting of its unusually enlightened and forward-looking Secretary in the late 1970s, Bob Bergland, USDA undertook a serious examination of the topic. The team that did it had impeccable credentials as mainstream agricultural scientists. But unlike the CAST folks, that didn't lead them to feel that they didn't also have to visit organic farms all around the country, collect data, undertake case studies, talk to people (and listen to them, too!), systematically review the literature, and so forth. They did all those things, and the results show it. Their report, which portrayed organic farming quite favorably, was widely circulated and --- unlike CAST's -- came to be considered a landmark in the history of organic farming in the US.

Unfortunately, I can't end this account on such an upbeat note. Very soon after the USDA report was published, a new administration came in (Ronald Reagan's), and with it a new Secretary of Agriculture. In a short time, the USDA turned its back on organic, and the little bit of progress that had occurred within the Department in the wake of the report was undone. But, as we all know, organic continued to gain in stature on its own, USDA or no USDA. And, to come back to my main point, CAST's feeble efforts to stop its progress amounted to nothing. So, while I think it is quite appropriate to be alert to the kinds of smear campaigns that have started up again, and to do what can be done to counter the outrageous arguments being offered (although I wish it weren't necessary to spend one's energy that way), I'd like to believe that in the long run the smears will be seen to be just as pathetic, puerile, and embarrassing as were CAST's.

Willie Lockeretz
School of Nutrition Science and Policy
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155 (USA)

** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed for research and educational purposes only. **